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Don't let recruitment efforts compromise credentialing

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, February 20, 2004

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Dear Credentialing Colleague:

This week, let's look at the current clash between hospital efforts to recruit physicians to improve market share and one of the most important activities of any medical staff: credentialing.

In today's competitive environment, it is natural for hospital marketing or development departments to recruit physicians to the medical staff. There is no question that such recruitment does, in many instances, benefit the hospital through increased admissions or other patient-care contacts. But the increased rate of recruiting also could lead to problems when not adequately coordinated with the hospital's credentialing system.

It is clear to me that, in many institutions, there is little coordination between a hospital's recruitment efforts and its credentialing activities. I have seen at least a dozen examples in which a physician recruited by an institution either: (1) failed to meet the basic appointment standards of the medical staff; (2) had a background suggestive of great difficulty in clinical practice; (3) proved to be an extremely disruptive practitioner; or (4) was of little, if any, benefit to the medical staff.

There are many other examples of recruitment efforts that failed to acknowledge the need for a rigorous credentialing process.

Medical staff leaders should work with hospital management to establish standards for recruiting or inviting physicians to apply for staff appointment. That activity needs to include the medical staff service professionals (MSSPs), as they are the most likely recipients of applications by recruited physicians that may be marginal or substandard. MSSPs face substantial pressure from their institution's marketing or development department to get a certain physician on staff. Often, recruiters accuse the MSSPs of delaying the application process, although it's the credentialing process itself that dictates how long it should take.

But we know that this simply is not true. The credentialing process in most hospitals is the most important quality control mechanism for the medical staff. Medical executive committees should discuss this issue with representatives of management and the medical staff office to ensure that appointment and privileging standards are not compromised simply because the institution has found it necessary to recruit additional physicians.

That's all for this week.

All the best,

Hugh Greeley

http://www.greeley.com/seminars/

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